Tag >> Peter Jackson

On a Whizz-Bang Thrill Ride

The Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg motion-capture animation The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn opens in Europe on 22 October before hitting American cinemas ahead of…

Masterpiece Rereleased

Peter Jackson’s “masterpiece” Heavenly Creatures has been reissued on DVD and Blu-ray and is re-reviewed by the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw who says watching Jackson’s “masterly, formally daring, and superbly…

Jackson Bags the Best Bilbo

Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson says there is “simply nobody else” who could star as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit epic but British actor Martin Freeman. “He is fantastic and…

Live Action at Comic-Con

Animation/motion-capture combination enabled Steven Spielberg to ‘step in and film like a live-action film’, said Peter Jackson at Comic-Con, who…

Jackson on Location

“Leave it to Peter Jackson to make a Facebook video as thrilling and breathtaking as any of his films,” Entertainment Weekly reporter Aly Semigran writes. “As the…

Empire Covers Middle Earth

“In honour of Jackson’s long-awaited return to Middle-earth for two dragon-and-dwarf-laden prequels — as a “good luck charm” according to the director — Empire takes its symbolic and…

Trailer: Meet the Feebles

Facebook Hobbit Updates

Peter Jackson has posted his first video blog from the set of The Hobbit showing production starting on his 3D epic which is being filmed in New Zealand. The…

Elfin Airs For McKenzie

Former Conchord, Wellingtonian Bret McKenzie, is joining the cast of Peter Jackson’s epic The Hobbit as the elf Lindir from Rivendell. McKenzie previously played an elf nicknamed Figwit in…

Hobbit Production Rolls

Production has now begun on Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Hobbit, set in Middle-earth 6 years before The Lord of the Rings. Not an earthquake, a health scare,…

Hobbit Cast Front-up

The cast of Peter Jackson’s two-film adaptation of The Hobbit were this month introduced to the news media at a press conference in Wellington at the Park Road Post…

Anticipation Sky High

Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of JR Tolkien’s classic The Hobbit “is already one of the most talked about before shooting,” according to Christopher Wright writing for the site Film…

Tintin draws closer

Three new images from the Peter Jackson-produced and Steven Spielberg-directed 3-D motion capture film The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, have just been released online. Secret…

Classic reimagining

“Reports that Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom will reprise their Lord of the Rings roles in The Hobbit suggest Jackson’s two-part production may be more epic than its…

Hobbit gets greenlighted

Film industry labour issues between actors and producers were among the elements that triggered a month long crisis in Peter Jackson’s production of The Hobbit, solved only by the…

Calling All Hobbits

An advertisement in Wellington’s Dominion Post has called for diminutive actors to audition for the parts of Middle Earth hobbits in Peter Jackson’s prequel to the Oscar-winning Lord of…

Homecoming King

2,500 fans took part in a “low-key” ceremony to honour Peter Jackson and fellow Oscar winners at the Wellington Events Centre. Jackson and co each received a glass goblet…

Weta Puts Out Feelers

New York-based Ohio Edit is to represent Weta Digital on the US commercial circuit. Company heads Peter Jackson and Richard Taylor decided that their acclaimed effects house would benefit…

Reassuring the fans

Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson is optimistic The Hobbit will still go ahead “sometime soon” and that Warners was “making progress untangling the MGM situation”. In an interview…

Kong is Back

The King Kong attraction at Hollywood park, the first theme park attraction that Peter Jackson’s New Zealand-based f/x shop Weta Digital has created, reopens on July 1 after a…

Saving the Hobbits

Sir Peter Jackson will take up the role of director for the film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit if it meant he was able to protect…

Collaborative honour

Director, Peter Jackson, has been knighted by Governor-General, Sir Anand Satyanand, at an investiture ceremony in Wellington. Jackson’s knighthood was for services to the arts in New Zealand. “The…

Tentative ten

Wellington’s Weta Digital effects house has begun pre-production on the sequel to Peter Jackson-produced District 9, the “tentatively titled” District 10. Filming is scheduled to begin in South Africa…

Sprites by Leibovitz

Director Peter Jackson and Lovely Bones star Saoirse Ronan were photographed at New York’s Time Warner Center by Annie Leibovitz for the March issue of Vanity Fair, in a…

Gandalf’s Return

The Hobbit, produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, will begin filming in New Zealand in July with Sir Ian McKellen once again taking the role of Gandalf the…

Making her mark in LA

New Plymouth-born actress Melanie Lynskey, 32, talks to the Wall Street Journal about being a working actor in Hollywood, her big break in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures and about…

Oscar for Kim Sinclair

Auckland production designer Kim Sinclair won the Academy Award for Art Direction on Avatar with American colleagues Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg. “Each virtual set had trees and plants…

Like it or loathe it

Wellington Airport-owned land on the hills of Miramar Peninsula could soon sport a Hollywood-style sign with the word ‘Wellywood’ erected in 3.5m high letters, that is, if it isn’t…

Memories of plasma

The Lovely Bones director Peter Jackson “should forswear sugar next time and reintroduce himself to plasma, brain matter, puke, shit and intestines; all the elements that gave his earlier,…

Weta woos Hollywood

Wellington-based Weta Digital, which was behind the effects work on blockbusters Avatar and District 9, has been nominated for nine Academy Awards; CNET Asia’s Daniel Terdiman says the “accolades…

McIver learns from best

New Zealand actress Rose McIver, 22, plays the younger sister to Saoirse Ronan in Peter Jackson’s thriller The Lovely Bones. Teen Hollywood talks to McIver about working with stars…

Knighthood for Jackson

Director Peter Jackson was among five New Zealanders to become knights or dames after a return to New Year’s honours. Former Prime Minister Helen Clark — who axed British…

Traits of an auteur

Ahead of this month’s release of Peter Jackson’s latest cinematic offering The Lovely Bones, The New York Times’ Terrence Rafferty takes a look at Jackson’s body of work over…

Bones for the Queen

Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones has been selected to screen at November’s Royal Film Performance in London’s Leicester Square. Jackson said he is “honoured” it has been selected, adding…

Still the Greatest

Adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary is the “greatest living New Zealander” according to the results of a recent Research New Zealand poll. Despite his death in January 2008, Sir…

High expectations

“If sheer workload weren’t enough to keep the 47-year-old filmmaker on edge, he’s also grappling with lofty expectations,” writes Sandy Cohen for Associated Press. “Chief among them,…

Lights, camera, action!

Wellington film director Peter Jackson is gearing up for an extended run at the box office, ending a four-year hiatus from the big screen. Working with a stable of…

Bombs away in 3D

Peter Jackson has told the Telegraph he thinks “a World War Two bombing raid in 3D would be neat”. While it may be pushing the boundaries of good taste,…

Finding Originality

Director Peter Jackson talks to Los Angeles Times reporter Geoff Boucher about producing sci-fi film District 9, hobbits and the proliferation of remakes, sequels and adaptations in Hollywood. District…

Fronting up at Comic-Con

Wellington director Peter Jackson spoke last week at the 40th annual Comic-Con in San Diego — the largest comic book and popular arts convention late last week — much…

Commission reviewer

Director Peter Jackson will lead a review of the New Zealand Film Commission alongside head of screen business at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School David Court. Jackson…

Jackson in the district

Wellington director Peter Jackson will attend this year’s San Diego convention Comic-Con International on July 24 for the first time, the prospect delighting thousands of comic-book, science-fiction and fantasy…

Production lift-off

The New Zealand film industry is booming with “local helmers poised to soar again”. Whale Rider director Niki Caro’s The Vintners Luck, in which she reteams with her young…

Bony buoyancy

Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel The Lovely Bones though “murderous is also optimistic”, headlines USA Today. For all the violence and grief of The Lovely…

Long Distance Teamwork

Tintin collaborators Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg are in touch across the world via a video-conferencing setup for the first installment of the film, using a custom-made iChat-type system…

Mother of gore

Peter Jackson’s 1992 zombie horror Braindead — released as Dead Alive in the United States — is, according to the Tri-City Herald’s Ed Robertson, “unless someone has video of…

Peter Jackson in action

Six of Peter Jackson’s Oscars quietly share desk space with a grasshopper model from James and the Giant Peach, a Lancaster Bomber, a cardboard replica of Thunderbird One, and…

Gold-plated Memories

Directors Jane Campion and Peter Jackson, as well as actor Russell Crowe — who also hails from Wellington — feature in a Los Angeles Times Oscar winners photo gallery…

Brain Dead Dolls

Wellington’s Weta Workshop will create practical and creature effects for American director Kristoffer Aaron Morgan’s independent horror film, The Home. “The Home is going to be an amazing film…

NZ’s film bonanza

Wellington’s Weta Digital will develop the effects for upcoming 3D motion-capture trilogy, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, the sequel of which Peter Jackson will direct in…

New Zealand’s Top History Makers: Peter Jackson

New Zealand’s Top History Makers features Peter Jackson.

Hobbiton revisited

New Zealand is once again the backdrop for Middle Earth, Peter Jackson and Hobbit director Guillermo Del Toro confirmed in an hour-long live internet chat with fans. Speaking from…

Great spirit returns

New Zealand’s favourite wizard, Sir Ian McKellen will return to the country to reprise his role as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit. McKellen had…

Two Hobbits of a Kind

Peter Jackson is joining forces with Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro to make the two back-to-back film adaptations of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Jackson will co-produce the…

Hobbit back in Jackson’s court

Peter Jackson has settled his long-running legal dispute with New Line and will make The Hobbit for the studio as originally planned. Jackson and his creative partner Fran Walsh…

Film’s Future in Good Hands

Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern paid Peter Jackson a visit at his Miramar studios on a recent trip to NZ. The pair discussed their favourite movies, the…